


May Nothing But Death Do Us Part

by pocketmumbles (livelikejack)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Mr. & Mrs. Smith Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3444545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelikejack/pseuds/pocketmumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something about Derek that puts Braeden at ease, makes her want to smile and laugh and…be. Be a regular person with a regular life and regular dreams.</p><p>Be someone who doesn’t kill people for a living.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>(Or, a Mr. & Mrs. Smith AU.)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	May Nothing But Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slythatheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slythatheart/gifts).



> For the Teen Wolf Rarepair Exchange, Round 3. Beta'd by [bleep0bleep](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bleep0bleep/pseuds/bleep0bleep); all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Everyone is human in this, just to simplify things. This loosely follows the plot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, where Braeden and Derek are assassins who don’t know that the other is an assassin and fall madly in love.
> 
> Fic title is a fairly standard wedding vow, and also a line from [“Uma Thurman” by Fall Out Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBswx7GEARc).

Braeden steps into the hotel lobby and blinks at the chaos. “What’s going on?” she asks the doorman.

The doorman guides her gently away from the door. “There’s been an accident,” he says. Braeden looks past him at the cops swarming outside and suppresses a snort. ‘An accident’ is an understatement. There’s a corpse lying in the road a few blocks down – or what’s left of it, anyway. “Are you here by yourself, miss?”

“What?”

“They’re looking for solo travelers,” the doorman says, and frowns at her in concern. “You didn’t come here by yourself, did you? They’re questioning all of them. I don’t want you getting mixed up in it, miss.”

Braeden’s eyes widen. “Oh, no,” she says. “I just went out to get my boyfriend a Pepsi. He’s-” She stares around the lobby, and her eyes land on a man turning around from the front desk.

He’s leaning casually on the desk as he turns, body loose but stiff from the neck up. Sunglasses nestle in quickly-gelled dark hair, and a wallet bulges from the back of his jeans, but his hands are bare. His eyes quickly sweep the lobby before meeting her gaze, bright and tense and just a shade too aware. He’s alone. Perfect.

She walks across the lobby as comfortably as possible, staring into the man’s eyes and hoping he understands. _I know we’ve never spoken, but we’ve been together this whole time. I know we’ve never spoken, but we’re madly in love. I know we’ve never spoken, but we’re getting married._

He sweeps her up in a hug as soon as she reaches him. “Oh, thank god you’re alright,” he says, pulling back to kiss her quickly on the forehead. “They said there’s been some sort of accident? I was so worried.” He grabs her hand and starts pulling them up the stairs, waving at the front desk. “Thank you for helping me find her!”

Braeden follows him into a room on the second floor and lets out a breath as the door clicks shut. The man flips the deadbolt and leans against the wall with a sigh. He turns around and smiles hesitantly at her. “Sorry about that,” he says. He straightens and holds out his hand. “I’m Derek.”

She shakes it. “I’m Braeden.” She presses her ear against the wall and listens to the muffled footsteps outside. “Picked a hell of a time to do the solo tourist thing, huh?”

Derek laughs. “I should’ve known something like this would happen,” he says. “I have the worst luck in the world.”

“Mine’s usually a little better,” Braeden says, shaking her head. “Probably karma for coming here instead of going with my friends to LA.”

Derek scrunches his face. “Why would you want to go to LA, though? It sucks there.”

“Exactly!” Braeden holds up her hand for a high-five. “My friends love it there, I don’t get it.”

“See, this is why we’re getting married,” Derek says with a grin. A loud thud echoes outside, and they listen through the wall for a moment. “Hey,” he says softly. “After this is over, wanna get some dinner? I know a great place nearby.”

Braeden glances out the window. The cops are leaving; it sounds like things are calming down. Her knives are completely disposed of, she didn’t leave a shred of evidence behind, and she has an alibi. As far as missions go, she’s been through far worse than this.

And there’s something about Derek that puts her at ease, makes her want to smile and laugh and… _be_. Be a regular person with a regular life and regular dreams.

Be someone who doesn’t kill people for a living.

It’s easy, second-nature, even, to build a cover as the day wears on, as Derek takes her to dinner and tells her about growing up in small-town Northern California. The best lies are the ones closest to the truth, but she feels herself sharing more about herself than usual, letting tinier and tinier details slip until she can almost see herself as the Braeden she creates.

She’s spent too much time fending for herself, trusting only herself, relying on only herself to even dare get close to anyone she knows. But for the first time in her life, Derek makes her want to try.

Derek shuts their hotel door and picks up his bag with one hand, wrapping the other around hers. “Ready to go?” he asks.

She smiles and kisses him. “Where to next?”

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this?” Allison says.

Braeden reaches for her next handhold and hauls herself up the cliff face. “He’s in construction. He’s not around a lot, his schedule’s as busy as mine, our jobs’ll never cross paths. It’s perfect.”

“Yeah, well, plenty of people look nice on paper,” Lydia says as she climbs on Braeden’s other side. “How do you know you’ll be able to live with him?”

“We’ve been living together for the past six months.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have to be lying to him for basically your entire life,” Allison says.

Braeden plants her foot and arches an eyebrow at her coworker. “And how is that any different from the rest of our lives, exactly?”

“Well,” Lydia says. “For starters, how do you even know if you’re really in love with him?”

“It’s like they say,” Braeden says. She reaches the top and pulls herself over the cliff’s edge, turning back around to watch the other two climb after her. “When you know, you know.”

“Well,” Allison says, sounding unconvinced. “If you’re sure about this.”

Braeden nods firmly. “I am.”

 

Stiles gapes. “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Derek.”

Derek empties his magazine into the target’s chest and reloads. “Thanks for the support.”

“But I thought-” Stiles wanders out of his lane and into Derek’s. “Scott! Come on, man, back me up here.”

“Hey, if he’s serious, he’s serious,” Scott says.

“But-” Stiles begins, but is cut off by Scott firing the last of his magazine. “Seriously, Scott? You think this is a good idea?”

“No, I think it’s a terrible idea,” Scott says, putting down his gun with a shrug. “He’ll have to maintain a cover for the rest of his life, and if he’s ever found out it’s gonna be way messier than just your average breakup.” He looks over at Derek. “But Derek already knows that. If he’s made up his mind, what makes you think anyone’s gonna be able to stop him?”

Derek claps him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the support, Scott,” he says. “…I think.”

Stiles huffs. “Well, don’t come running to us for help when it all blows up in your face,” he says. “Because we will _not_ -”

“We’ll always have your back, Derek,” Scott says, nodding sincerely.

“No, Scott, no we won’t.”

Scott shrugs. “Well, _I_ will.” Stiles rolls his eyes and wanders back to his own lane, muttering angrily to himself. Scott turns back to Derek. “So, when are you gonna ask her?”

Derek feels for the small box in his pocket. “Tonight,” he says. Scott beams.

“Congratulations.” Derek turns in time to watch Stiles shoot clean through his target’s head. “I still think you’re making a terrible decision,” he continues, “but I’m happy for you. Really.”

Derek grins. “Thanks, Stiles.”

“I’m still not saving your ass when this blows up in your face, though.”

“It won’t,” Derek says with more confidence than he feels. Scott pats his arm and goes back to his own lane.

It won’t. He loves Braeden, he’s been gone over her ever since they met in that hotel lobby, and he…he can’t imagine his life without her. Even if spending his life _with_ her means hiding most of it. For her – for her, it’s worth it. For her, he’d do anything. Almost anything. Anything.

If he’s in love with her, if she’s in love with him, it’ll be enough. It’ll be worth it.

It has to be.

 

* * *

It all goes to hell. Of course it does. And of course it doesn’t even have the decency to blow up in her face, but rather crumble slowly and surely over agonizing weeks, months, years. It’s not a fire in their home or a knife in her back, but rather tightened jaws and pointed lines, forgotten dates and slipped details, and missed connections, so many missed connections from dropped phone calls and coming home too late, leaving too early, lips brushing cheeks instead of meeting mouths until Braeden looks across their ridiculously ornate dining room table and realizes that she doesn’t even know how to talk to her husband anymore.

She should’ve known. She should’ve. Everyone warned her; everyone she’d dared to tell, anyway. Half-believed love could never have been enough to sustain a web of lies, so thick and intricate that she can barely tell where she ends and this other her, this Braeden who spends more and more time away from a place she used to call home, begins.

It’s not that her cover slips. She’s not one of the top assassins in the world for nothing; she can keep facts straight, mold her personality to whatever the situation needs, whatever her mark wants…but Derek. He’d been different, he’d been special, he’d been her wildest dreams and her darkest nightmares; and all she could do was watch the lies keep spilling, crowding up around them so slowly until she could barely even see him through them all.

When it finally blows up in her face, complete with a bomb slipped into her jacket, she’s almost grateful.

She can work with this. She can push her feelings aside and focus on the mark, eliminate the threat. She can chase down this rival assassin, this enemy she cares nothing for. She takes a slow, steady breath and lets the last of her mask fall away. Cold. Calculating. Clinical. This she knows. This she can do.

She speeds across the bridge and does not, absolutely does not think about the way Derek’s eyes had shone with tears, the way he’d kissed her one last time and for a moment, for the tiniest of moments, she’d actually believed him.

 

It’s almost poetic, Derek thinks as he hurls himself to the ground and Braeden blasts a hole through the wall behind him. There’s a metaphor here, somewhere, in the bullet-ridden ruins of their once-happy home. He can’t stop to reach for it, though, since he’s too busy trying to murder his wife.

Of course she brings out weapons from caches all over their house, places he’d never even known about. Of course she’s well-prepared for something like this. Always prepared, never even a hair out of place, that’s his Brae—

Not his. Not Braeden. She’d lied to him just as much as he’d lied to her, and he doesn’t know her, could never know her, just like she could never know – he rolls to his feet, leveling his gun between her eyes at the same time that she does. Her eyes scream at him, so loud and incoherent, and when had he stopped being able to hear her? When had he stopped understanding her, when had he lost her, when had he fallen…

His gun clatters to the floor. Braeden watches with wide eyes as he kicks it down the hall and raises his hands. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you _can’t?_ ” she demands, eyes blazing. “Pick it up, Derek. Pick it up and finish this!”

He can’t. “I can’t,” he says, shaking his head slowly. Even through the deception, the lies, the tangled web of half-truths…he’d fallen. He’d fallen for her, all of him, and he could have walked out any time but he’d always turned back because he loved her, he’s always loved her. “I love you. I’ve lied about so much, Braeden, but I never lied about that. I…” He coughs out a laugh that feels closer to a sob. “I can’t lie to my own heart, and it’s always been yours, Braeden.”

“Shut up,” Braeden hisses. “Derek, pick up the gun.”

He lifts his chin and presses his forehead against the muzzle of her gun. “I can’t.”

 _“Come on!”_ Her hands shake around the gun, trembling like brittle leaves even though Derek’s always seen them so steady, so firm and stable and solid. She stares up at him in anger, confusion, hurt… _I can’t_.

His breath hitches. Braeden’s arms tremble as her face falls, and he can see it written all over her eyes. _I can’t. I love you. I can’t._ It’s nothing to push her gun aside, to let it clatter from her empty grip as he pulls her in tight. She clutches his face in her hands and presses their foreheads together with a sob and he falls, he falls all over again.

 

* * *

 

“It’s funny,” Derek says, taking a sip from a miraculously unscathed carton of orange juice before passing it back to Braeden.

She squints against the sun filtering through the eastern window of the mess that used to be their kitchen and snuggles closer to his chest. “What is?”

Derek licks his lips. “The day I proposed to you, Stiles said it was all gonna blow up in my face. And, well.”

Braeden laughs. “Well. You _did_ slip a bomb in my jacket.”

“Only a little one,” he says, eyes twinkling mischievously before he leans down to kiss her.

“Yeah, sure.” She rolls her eyes even he trails kisses down her throat. “I _liked_ that jacket. It was…” She pauses as the memory rushes back to her, pine needles and gingerbread hanging thick in the air as Derek nervously watched her unwrap the box. “…our first Christmas together.”

Derek leans back to meet her gaze, eyes softening in recognition. “It was,” he says softly. “I was so scared you’d-” His head snaps up, squinting towards the front door. “Did you hear that?”

She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t wait to hear the near-silent footfalls or telltale beep. She leaps to her feet and yanks Derek after her, sprinting into the backyard and vaulting over the Yukimuras’ fence right before the front of their house explodes.

Derek follows her into the Yukimuras’ garage, letting out a breath as tires squeal away and the silence is broken only by the crackle of burning wood. “Okay,” he says with a faint smile, “Now it’s _really_ blown up in our faces.”

She barely has time to glare at him before she breaks into laughter.

 

“Are you sure we can trust him?” Braeden hisses as Derek knocks on the front door. “Both of our agencies want us dead. How do you know he won’t-”

“He won’t,” Derek says with more confidence than he feels, and then the door opens.

Scott stares at them for a long moment. “Just so we’re clear,” he says slowly, eyes dragging from the stolen rainboots on Braeden’s feet to Derek’s shirtless chest, “I’m not judging either of you at all.”

Braeden arches an eyebrow at Derek. He sighs. “Thanks, Scott.”

Naturally, the first thing Stiles tells him is, “I told you so.”

Derek doesn’t bother to look up from buttoning the shirt Scott gave him. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean, I even told you so down to the whole ‘blowing up’ part, which I didn’t actually mean literally at the time,” Stiles says. “But. I told you so.”

“I got it, Stiles.”

Stiles nods. “Just so we’re clear.” He squints at Braeden. “How do you know we can trust her, again?”

“I trust her,” Derek says, curling his hand around hers with a smile.

Stiles sighs exaggeratedly. “Well, that’s very comforting.” He shuts his laptop. “Okay. We’ve got transport out of the country for you. You’re on your own after that.”

Braeden nods. “Understood.” She hesitates, then adds, “Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Stiles huffs. “Literally. I’m not getting my ass killed just because Derek was dumb enough to fall in love with a _rival assassin_ , oh my god I can’t even believe the words coming out of my mouth.”

Scott walks back into the room, frowning at an envelope in his hands. He holds it out to Braeden. “This got dropped at the front door a few minutes ago.”

Derek sits down next to Braeden, peering down at her name on the envelope. “It’s Lydia’s handwriting,” Braeden says, opening it carefully and upending its contents onto the coffee table. Passports, identification cards, and packets of currency spill out.

Scott’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well.”

Braeden pulls a note out of the envelope. _If you’re sure about this_ , it reads in different handwriting and silver Sharpie. Derek watches Braeden carefully, and something in his chest loosens as her face breaks into a grin. “Are you?” he asks.

She squeezes his hand. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

 

* * *

 

Derek climbs down from the jet, staring at the town while Braeden jumps down behind him. No one knows their names here. No one knows a thing about them here. “We could be anyone we want here,” he says.

Braeden smiles at him before straightening and holding out her hand. “I’m Braeden.”

He shakes it, feeling a smile of his own spread across his face. “I’m Derek.”

They walk away as the jet takes off, blowing Braeden’s hair around her face like a halo against the setting sun. Derek doesn’t know where they’re going or who they’ll be, but as he squeezes Braeden’s hand and she squeezes back just as tight, he knows one thing for sure.

They’ll be together.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say [hi](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
